Nuclear power in Europe

SOFIA, Oct 2 (Reuters) - Bulgaria is close to choosing a winner between Belgian energy firm Electrabel and Germany's RWE AG to make a strategic investment in a planned 4 billion euro ($5.6 billion) nuclear plant, Bulgarian utility NEK said on Thursday.

In August, state-owned NEK asked RWE and Electrabel, owned by France's GDF Suez, to improve their offers for a 49 percent stake in the plant it is building to restore Bulgaria's position as a leading power exporter in southeastern Europe.

Macedonia has five more days to decide how it will deal with the energy crisis that is threatening the region. Experts believe that one of the more favourable options would be to strike a deal with Bulgaria on power supply through subventions from the new nuclear plant that is being constructed in Belene. The documents that Nova Makedonija has come across indicate that the financial construction of the Belene project -- which commenced on 3 September -- is drawing to a close and that the last package of the technical project should be approved by 15 September at the latest. This means that, unless an agreement is reached on our participation in the Belene project in the remaining few days, Macedonia will depend on the import of expensive electricity for decades, unless it gets involved in other serious energy investments. Generally speaking, this will have a negative effect on the population's standard of living because the price of every product is related to the price of the basic energy source -- electricity.

Sofia. National movement Ecoglasnost has sent a letter of request to the European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs, whereby it insisted that Commissioner Piebalgs should take a stance on the NPP Belene issue.

Since the end of the cold war, the United Nations has logged more than 800 incidents in which radioactive material has gone missing, often from poorly guarded sites. Who is taking it - and should we be worried? Julian Borger investigates.